I am a New York City public high school student. The situation is beyond control • Hacker News Board

Re: I am a New York City public high school student. The situation is beyond control

#481

Post by labster » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 1:34 AM UTC

UnpossibleJim wrote: post #406

labster wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If students only come in every other day, schools will only receive 50% funding in the US. In Japan, schools are often privately funded, but a solution that cuts public funding of education by half in the US is a non-starter. It would likely take a constitutional amendment in California to change the school budget formula. But we’re not going to have a third year of COVID anyway. Nearly everyone is going to catch the…

Dumb question and I realize it may be. I've seen that said before, "Nearly everyone is going to catch omicron within the next 2 to 6 months"; the range changes both the quote is similar. I haven't really seen a why, it just seems to be a given. I know it's more virulent, but why is everyone going to have it so soon?

R is between 2 and 3 infections per infected. That’s exponential growth, and omicron’s life cycle is faster than delta or alpha by a couple days. Health care facilities and airlines can’t keep fully staffed despite them taking the most precautions and requiring vaccinations. There was an outbreak in Antarctica where more than half the research station got it despite strict isolation and testing before arrival. How can we possibly stop that?

Definitely not a dumb question.

Re: I am a New York City public high school student. The situation is beyond control

#482

Post by Rebelgecko » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 1:35 AM UTC

labster wrote: post #368

darth_avocado wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will be year 3 of covid and this is 100% the fault of the same people who have created every other problem in the education system: the administrators. There is no perfect way to open schools, that much is certain after looking at other countries. But looking at the state of things, it doesn’t even seem like people are trying. Japan has students come in on alternate days, so that the school can operate at 50% capa…

If students only come in every other day, schools will only receive 50% funding in the US. In Japan, schools are often privately funded, but a solution that cuts public funding of education by half in the US is a non-starter. It would likely take a constitutional amendment in California to change the school budget formula. But we’re not going to have a third year of COVID anyway. Nearly everyone is going to catch the…

It seems like the simple solution is to include distance learning days in ADA (does NY even use average daily attendance for school funding?).

Re: I am a New York City public high school student. The situation is beyond control

#483

Post by xwdv » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 1:36 AM UTC

Terry_Roll wrote: post #361

the__alchemist wrote: post #224

I speculate that students who spend time learning from internet resources like Khan Academy will get a significant leg up over their colleagues in this case; even more so than usual. This applies both in the sense that "They will learn more effectively", and "They'll have a better shot at getting into universities".

Books are remote learning, this isn't a Khan Academy thing, arguably its an introvert/extrovert thing.

For too long extroverts have built a world that is hostile to the needs of introverts. It is time for a new order.

Re: I am a New York City public high school student. The situation is beyond control

#484

Post by fineIllregister » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 1:36 AM UTC

Blackthorn wrote: post #435

darth_avocado wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will be year 3 of covid and this is 100% the fault of the same people who have created every other problem in the education system: the administrators. There is no perfect way to open schools, that much is certain after looking at other countries. But looking at the state of things, it doesn’t even seem like people are trying. Japan has students come in on alternate days, so that the school can operate at 50% capa…

> the administrators What throws me about all this is that their entire job, the reason they draw a paycheck in the first place, their raisin d'oatmeal, is to keep things running smoothly when the unexpected happens. Now going into year three and they've managed to do fuck all to create solutions. Which is, y'know, their JOB. Generally they've just made problems worse by sticking their noses into things. What the hel…

That seems backwards. My perspective is that we pay them to do the most routine, absolute bare minimum.

Re: I am a New York City public high school student. The situation is beyond control

#485

Post by notdang » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 1:37 AM UTC

kodah wrote: post #322

megablast wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why?? This is normal and natural.

No, it's not normal and it's not natural. I remember being treated like this by the same people I heard spread fear and misinformation about COVID throughout the year before I got COVID. It's incredibly dehumanizing, isolating, and fractures any sense of community. My relationship with those people will never be the same.

They are kids and acting like kids.

Re: I am a New York City public high school student. The situation is beyond control

#486

Post by PragmaticPulp » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 1:37 AM UTC

mlindner wrote: post #311

Seems to me that the school is unnecessarily scaring kids more than doing anything else. These teens have almost nothing to fear from covid. Most of the rest of the country (outside major cities) almost ignores covid exists. Good article on the subject: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/12/where-i-li...

Are we reading the same post?

They are trying to ignore COVID and carry on as usual. The issues come from having so many teachers out sick.

Can’t run a school without teachers. Doesn’t make sense to force kids to come in just to pack them into overcrowded auditoriums because so many teachers are sick.

I don’t understand how people think schools are only a place for kids, who never interact with teachers or go home to their older adult parents.

Re: I am a New York City public high school student. The situation is beyond control

#487

Post by sylens » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 1:37 AM UTC

LodeOfCode wrote: post #441

sylens wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't fault any schools for struggling from March 2020 to June 2020, being thrown into the pandemic and remote learning with no warning. But I was absolutely astonished to see that most administrators took the summer of 2020 off, assuming that everybody would be back in school that fall and things would be normal. They wasted several months of time that could've been spent planning contingencies and how remote lear…

>whose job was to monitor chat/messages from the virtual attendees and raise his hand to ask a question to the instructor Seems like a human solution to a (mostly) technical problem. Basically you just need a way for students to mark a message as hand-raising (and maybe a way to point out another student's message), a chat filter for the teacher to read those messages, and a USB LED (or some such) to act as a raised…

The idea is that the teacher doesn't have to keep their eyes on a laptop screen and can mostly move about the classroom in the normal way that they would teach a lesson.

Re: I am a New York City public high school student. The situation is beyond control

#488

Post by eadmund » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 1:38 AM UTC

another_story wrote: post #344

sylens wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't fault any schools for struggling from March 2020 to June 2020, being thrown into the pandemic and remote learning with no warning. But I was absolutely astonished to see that most administrators took the summer of 2020 off, assuming that everybody would be back in school that fall and things would be normal. They wasted several months of time that could've been spent planning contingencies and how remote lear…

Where are you going to get a few million surrogates? A lot of solutions shared here fail to realize that the majority of US public school teachers are routinely spending their own money on basic classroom supplies.

'Since March 2020, the federal government has provided $190 billion in pandemic aid to schools …'[0]

'There are 130,930 public and private K-12 schools in the U.S.'[1]

$190 billion divided by 130,930 is $1.45 million dollars per school. Now, I will readily grant that a million dollars just ain't what it used to be, but it is, even in 2021, still a heck of a lot of money, and it sure sounds from the raw numbers that public school teachers shouldn't need to spend their own money on basic COVID-19 supplies.

0: https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/look-up-how-much-covi...

1: https://www.edweek.org/leadership/education-statistics-facts...

Re: I am a New York City public high school student. The situation is beyond control

#489

Post by Izkata » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 1:42 AM UTC

telman17 wrote: post #283

bunfunton wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? It’s not really harmful to children. Note all the verbage in the news that says “hospitalized with covid” instead of “hospitalized because of covid”. They are going to the hospital mostly due to other reasons

I don't have the source available but was told that the concern was there is some kind of evidence that the vaccine had a low chance of causing long term heart issues in some children, which is why it hasn't been approved for children under 5 yet.

Risk of myocarditis (heart inflammation) in men under 40 years old is higher after 2 doses of an mRNA vaccine than from SARS-CoV-2 itself, particularly after Moderna where it's many times higher: https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/uk-now-reports-myoca...

Article is an overview of the most interesting findings; in particular I'm referencing the second image, which is copied directly from a study that's linked right above it.

Re: I am a New York City public high school student. The situation is beyond control

#490

Post by ransom1538 » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 1:42 AM UTC

caddemon wrote: post #308

ransom1538 wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I don’t understand why remote learning during this surge isn’t acceptable." What about kindergarten? Teaching 20+ students 5-6 years olds through zoom??? - seems like a fools errand. This could be their most important years for learning. "The pieces attack school officials or teachers but complete ignore the logistics of having so many sick teachers." Everyone will get covid. Period. Just get it. You might get it on…

Have you had COVID? Good luck teaching a room full of 6 year olds with active symptoms. This is what people are essentially asking for right now, at least in certain districts where 10%+ of the teaching staff are out with symptomatic COVID.

I had covid. My kids had covid. My parents had covid. My neighbors had covid. My cat had covid (snotting - no test). You will get covid. The war is lost. Unless, you move to northern Alaska and do no visit shops - and use the land. But that is death.